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Ethnic
Chinese from Indonesia wins appeal over asylum case
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that a Sacramento
couple is eligible for political asylum after finding that
the woman faced likely persecution as an ethnic Chinese
in Indonesia. The ruling marks the first time a U.S. court
has found government-sanctioned discrimination against Indonesia's
Chinese minority.
The U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco cited three reasons
for finding that the woman would be in danger if she were
to be deported to Indonesia: a history of anti-Chinese violence
that dates back to 1740, laws still on the books that prohibit
Chinese schools and other institutions, and mob attacks
and threats against the woman before she fled with her husband.
Her husband's asylum claim is based on her situation.
The case is the first of at least 30 pending before the
court in which Indonesians of Chinese ancestry are appealing
denials of asylum by U.S. immigration judges, said Robert
G. Ryan, a lawyer for the couple.
"This is a very important human rights case for all
ethnic Chinese and for all Indonesian Christians,'' a category
to which many of Indonesia's Chinese belong, Ryan said.
Indonesia's "government is unwilling or unable to control
many native Indonesians who have a field day harassing and
discriminating against ethnic Chinese.''
The Indonesian Consulate in San Francisco did not respond
to a request for comment about Thursday's ruling.
The woman, Taty Sael, testified that rock-throwing mobs
attacked a boarding house where she and another Chinese
woman were staying in 1995, and a taxicab in which she and
her husband, Orville Wright Manariangkuba, were riding in
Jakarta in 1998.
Sael hid in her home for three weeks but eventually had
to take her infant son to the hospital and immediately had
her car vandalized and was threatened by neighbors, the
court said. She and her husband entered the United States
in August 1998, overstayed their visas and applied for asylum.
They now run their own business in Sacramento, Ryan said.
An immigration appeals board rejected their claims that
ethnic Chinese faced persecution in Indonesia, citing the
Indonesian government's formal endorsement of ethnic tolerance
and a sharp decline in reported attacks on ethnic Chinese
in 1999.
The appeals court
disagreed, citing the continued existence of anti- Chinese
laws and a history of periodic attacks from the 18th century
onward, including a series of riots in 1998 in which more
than 1,000 people were killed and dozens of women were raped.
M (BE/CSF/IM)
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